


Through Media Eyes (I'll Tell You No Lies)

by defractum (nyargles)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, Multimedia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyargles/pseuds/defractum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is a politician, Grantaire is in a band. A break-up and make-up, as told through the media.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Media Eyes (I'll Tell You No Lies)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [static_abyss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/gifts).



> For static_abyss, whose prompt was: A break-up-then-make-up fic along the lines of Last Christmas. Would love it if Enjolras and Grantaire are public figures and their break up is messy and very public, though, of course, the public never gets the full story. How they make up is up to the author as well as the reason for their break up.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

  __

**DECEMBER**

_–_

_12 missed calls_

–

"I'm never doing that for you again," says Eponine. She's a scowling vision of misery, swaddled under several blankets, her bare legs sticking out from underneath them and her horrifically high heels still dangling from her toes, teetering on the point of falling. She's furiously smoking her fourth cigarette, and Grantaire knows that if he asks her to do all this again, she would in a heartbeat.

Grantaire peels his leather jacket off. It's damp, but the sort of damp that seeps in not from rain, but from everything being just really fucking cold. "I'm sorry," he says wearily. He's been saying it for the last half hour, since they'd ditched the party for their hotel. They've been on the move since he checked himself out of rehab.

He fucking hates rehab.

"I'm going to have to write a song about this," she says.

Grantaire snorts, and crawls into his bed despite how disgusting he still feels. There's a thin film of sweat, gluing his t-shirt and jeans to his skin, clammy at the base of his neck where it's been exposed to the vicious New York air. His mouth is dry from the over-compensating heating and the tips of his fingers are still chilled. He needs a bath, really, something warm and relaxing, but all he wants to be is unconscious.

"You'll have great lyrics. 'My best friend is using me for a beard and everyone hates me because they adore his ex'," says Grantaire. Now he's in the bed, the duvet feels smothering, and he's all too aware that he's uncomfortable because he's still sticky from the party, from remnants of booze and sweat and other people clinging to his skin.

Eponine snorts, and kick her heels off. They land somewhere under Grantaire's bed. "What, no. Those're shit lyrics. This is why you have no songs on your album," says Eponine. Grantaire whines, because whilst it's true – the only song penned by Grantaire officially on the band's discography is a hidden track on their first album – Grantaire is feeling pathetic and heartbroken and miserable, and it should be illegal to be mean to him when he's feeling like that.

"Suck it up," says Eponine, finally ditching her blankets to roll over the bed and fish for some pyjamas and make-up wipes. She flashes Grantaire her knickers, because her dress is really ridiculously short, and Grantaire wonders vaguely how she didn't freeze tonight. "You're not the one who just spent an entire night with people implying you're a whore or a gold digger or a jealous bitch."

"You make more money than I do," says Grantaire. Eponine levels him an unimpressed look, because it's not like she needed _Grantaire_ to tell her that, and wriggles into her flannel pyjamas.

"Sorry," says Grantaire, again. He really needs a drink again, but. He's not doing that shit anymore. He promised himself. "I really didn't realise it would be that bad."

"Your first public outing after your big horrific break-up from the media darling of the year, and you bring some girl," says Eponine with a twisted smile. "And you didn't think it would be that bad?"

Grantaire smiles, except half his face is still numb from the wind so he's not even sure what it looks like. "You know me. I do great ostrich impressions."

–

_4 days clean._

  __

–––

__

**JANUARY**

**–**

_8 missed calls._

–

There's a voicemail left from Enjolras amidst the calls.

“ _R. R, it's me. Please stop avoiding me. I don't know what I did. Was it me? You said it was you but I know when you're lying.”_

There's a pause.

“ _'Ferre says I should tell you to give the ring back. He's really mad at you. I am too. I am, I just. I'm too tired to be mad right now._

Another voice filters through, faint and in the background. It's Courfeyrac. _“Enjolras? Where are you? You said you were – oh, shit. Shit. Who're you calling? Is it Grantaire? ...Oh, Enjolras. We agreed it was a bad idea. You're going to regret this in the morning. Aw, shit.”_

Grantaire's stomach clenches, and it's nothing to do with withdrawal. He smokes another cigarette instead.

Enjolras's voice again, over the sounds of a scuffle, like Courfeyrac's trying to get the phone away from him. _“I just – I just have to talk to him. If I can just talk to him, he'll know, he'll see –”_

“ _It's a little late to start talking to him_ now _, isn't it, Enjolras?”_

“ _But,”_ says Enjolras. He sounds lost and confused and drunk, and the thread Grantaire's been using to slowly stitch his heart back together disintegrates. _“But I still love him.”_

The message cuts off.

_42 days clean._

–––

 

**FEBRUARY**

**–**

There are no more missed calls.

–

“So hey, are you attending the Oscars this year?” asks Jehan.

Grantaire shoves his phone between ear and shoulder, trying to fish his keys out of his pocket, and frowns distractedly. “What? No, why would I be? I do music, not movies.”

He can practically hear Jehan's artfully careless shrug, even over the phone. “I just thought you might be going with someone.”

A suspicion grows. “No... everyone got dates like months ago. Jehan? What the hell is going on?”

“I was just being a good friend and warning you, okay, but since you're not going, it doesn't matter!”

“Jehan.”

There's a pause, and then Jehan says, somewhat apologetically, “Enjolras is going. With Cosette.”

Grantaire blinks; his car keys slip through his fingers back into his coat pocket. He exhales a curse, and starts digging for them again. “Fuck. No, that wasn't at you. I just. My keys. Yeah, going with Cosette makes sense, she did that movie with the – it's a, it's a good political statement.”

“R. They're not together.” The tiniest hint of impatience creeps into Jehan's voice and Grantaire huffs, because he must have really been getting on everyone's last nerve for that to happen. Plus, he knows he lost Jehan to Enjolras in the divorce – and shit, even thinking the word _divorce_ sends a stab of pain through his chest. It's not like they were married.

“Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it, I'm sure he knows what he's doing. Look, I've got to be at the studio, Chetta is gonna kill me. I'll talk to you later, yeah?”

“...”

“Later, Jehan.”

“Take care, R.”

Grantaire tosses his phone into the passenger seat when he gets the door unlocked, finally, and slumps into the seat. Half a block down, a photographer adjusts their telescopic lens, and Grantaire pulls himself together. Right, he doesn't have the luxury of feelings when he's in public.

 

 

Grantaire wakes up post-Oscars after a night of heavy drinking, his brain throbbing with pain. It wasn't even after-party drinking, it was just... sad drinking. He's honestly surprised he lasted this long. He vaguely remembers a phone call, a dim memory that's fading, and alarm makes him shoot upright. Ice picks stab in at his temples and Grantaire groans, cringing, and fumbles for his phone in the dark.

Even drunk, he tends to leave it by his pillow, and thankfully it's there today too. He thumbs through his call log and groans, and he sees Enjolras there, at the top of his outgoing calls. Shit. They apparently had a twelve minute long phone call.

Grantaire actually wishes he didn't remember more of last night, because the other thing he remembers is clutching the phone, and saying into the mouthpiece, over and over, "I wish I hadn't left. I wish I hadn't left."

He doesn't remember what Enjolras said.

_0 days clean._

**MARCH**

March feels like a good time for a new leaf. Another new leaf. Whatever. Grantaire might be missing out on the New Year's Resolutions, but then, he always was good at being fashionably late. He shaves his beard off for the first time in months. Maybe he's coming out of hibernation. (Maybe he's really bad at analogies.) The face that looks back at him is skinnier than he remembers it, younger, smaller.

He undoes the chain that he always has on around his neck, and drops the necklace and the ring that hangs from it both into a drawer.

When he walks down the street, Grantaire rubs self-consciously at his chin, feeling surprisingly naked – which is a bold statement for someone who's been actually naked in public. He turns up at the studio and fucks around with a few drum lines as he waits.

“Who are you?!” exclaims Joly through three layers of scarves when he walks in, and clutches at where his heart would be, if it weren't covered in a sweater, two hoodies and a coat. “I feel like I haven't seen you in a while!”

“I feel fresh out of high school,” says Grantaire. “Also, cold. Really cold.”

“I have _got_ to warn Bossuet,” says Joly, whipping out his phone to text something.

Bossuet arrives, half an hour late, with Musichetta in tow, who's been pressed into carrying a hastily-thrown together bunch of lilies, a badly drawn coffin on a scrap of paper, and a bucket. “For the beard,” Bossuet says mournfully, as he and Musichetta arrange the flowers and paper coffin inside the bucket. “You could have kept it and donated it to me for actual hair, you know. Such a waste. Hand me your lighter?”

“I hate you both,” says Grantaire, but laughs and fishes his lighter out of his pocket anyway. Bossuet lights the paper and flower concoction on fire, and they have a solemn moment for Grantaire's beard.

“Soooooo,” says Bossuet, and where Joly had been good enough to not poke at it, Bossuet will. “Is this you getting out of the slump?”

“Eh,” says Grantaire. “I'm trying, at least.”

Sometimes, when Grantaire see something, he still starts to reach for his phone, the thought _Enjolras would get a kick out of this_ at the fore of his mind, before he remembers. But he _is_ trying.

_12 days clean._

–––

  **APRIL**

“I'm never leaving,” says Grantaire. It's honestly still too cold and dreary for sunglasses, but he's a rock star, and everyone in Paris is chic and fashionable, culture seeping out of their very pores. Grantaire feels like an uncultured swine in comparison, but he doesn't care. He's walking down the riverbank, facing Notre Dame, and there are little stalls along the side of the street, selling postcards and drawings, tourist schmuck, but also old books, old cartoons, little trinkets that must have meant something to someone, once.

“I'll let Gavroche know a place has opened up for him,” says Joly as they meander down the street, and Grantaire chokes back laughter.

“Eponine would kill you.” Eponine has literally never forgiven him for introducing Gavroche to the world of drumming; he's going to buy Gav an electronic drumset for his birthday, so Eponine stands _some_ chance of peace.

“She would,” agrees Joly mournfully.

“I just. I love it here,” says Grantaire, even though it's so windy his scarf keeps whipping back into his face and his hair looks like it tried to make a run for it and it rains the occasional bouts, never quite deciding whether to stop or start. “I could fall in love in a place like this.” He shrugs, and smiles a lopsided smile. “Well. You know. _Again_.”

Joly nudges him companionably, and Grantaire nudges back.

(Paris had always been his dream honeymoon destination.)

_50 days clean._

 –––

**MAY**

 

 

    

 Grantaire's work notebook is more scrapbook than anything else. The cover's been ripped and crumpled so many times he'd duct taped it up. The inside falls open where photos and ticket stubs to gigs and places have been shoved in haphazardly. There's a mess of doodles, half-formed ideas for t-shirt artwork or CD covers. There's a section near the front of it that's near black, just saturated with the amount of ink it took to scribble through the pages.

Flipping through to the latest page, which is a couple of tattoos he's been considering for a while, Grantaire puts pen to paper, and surprises himself when words come out instead of pictures. They don't stop.

Three hours later, Grantaire pokes his head into the proper trailer. They don't really need two trailers, given there are four of them, but sometimes it's awkward, travelling with three other people who are sort-of all together. Sometimes, they need their space, or Grantaire needs his, which means they have one proper trailer, and one little caravan thing.

“Hey,” he says, climbing the stairs. He fidgets. He's – nervous? The others look up from where they're just lounging around, and Grantaire sees alarm start to sinks in as they look at him, so he hurries to reassure them. “So. I started writing again?”

Bossuet hugs him, but only because he's the closest and gets there first.

_84 days cleanish. Had a drink with Bahorel but didn't get drunk. Okay, fine. 0 days clean._

 –––

**JUNE**

“Have you heard from Enjolras?” asks Joly cautiously.

“No,” says Grantaire. “But I assume you have. I'm sure you'd tell me if there was anything serious going on.” He refuses to ask. He refuses. Luckily, Joly's a good friend.

“He's still pretty gutted,” says Joly. Of course, he's also Enjolras's friend too.

–

  _112 days clean._

––– 

**JULY**

Grantaire is exhausted. They all are. Three months of travelling have taken their toll on them, even with days off. Grantaire's joints still feel swollen from the plane, the last one of which was three weeks ago.

Their manager had taken revenge on the band dropping a surprise album with almost no notice by scheduling a press tour alongside the actual tour, and Grantaire has developed a little bit of a reflex to smile first, no matter the question, and then search desperately for the answer afterwards. That smile has saved him several times. (Joly has developed a similar habit, but his includes glaring instead.)

But – this is it. Their grand finale. Home ground.

“GOOD EVENING MADISON SQUARE GARDEN!” yells Musichetta, and the sheer force of the answering screams lifts Grantaire a few inches higher. “WE ARE THE ALIBI, AND WE ARE HERE TO ROCK YOUR WORLD.”

Their set list is a bit of an experimental thing at the moment. They'd spent the rest of the tour juggling it around, trying new combinations, trying to see where their new songs would fit, and what old ones would go. (None, in the end, even if it meant the concert was twenty minutes longer than they planned and Musichetta spends her days off with a flannel around her throat, refusing to talk.) Sometimes, one of them will feel the whim to change it up, spontaneously starting an unplanned song or tapping out the opening bars, and the rest of them will fall in line.

“Hey guys,” says Grantaire, six songs in. He's already dripping with sweat, his t-shirt soaked through. Usually, if one of the others are doing a solo, they get a chance to change clothes for a fresh t-shirt and scrub the sweat off, but he's at the back and no one's really looking at him anyway. “I feel a bit like singing.”

They look back at him, and grin. The crowd goes _wild_. There have been fan reports on the internet, of course, about Grantaire singing. This is the first tour Grantaire's sung on, and he's still only done it in a handful of shows.

It takes a bit to rearrange things, and Grantaire stumbles out from behind the shield of the drums to face the crowd face on, and ask them about their evening. He takes a selfie with them, and posts it on twitter right there and then. Bossuet traipses back out with a bottle of water and a towel. Grantaire peels his t-shirt off, pours the water over his head, and drapes the towel around his shoulders.

(There's a lot of screaming.)

“Sorry,” he says, pulling out the small bongo drums and flexing out his hands. “But that t-shirt was disgusting. I promise I'll put on a new one when they're done setting up. It's not really a shirtless t-shirt sort of song.”

Joly comes out next, with his acoustic-electric and flings a t-shirt at Grantaire's head.

“Thanks,” says Grantaire, shrugging it on and shaking the remaining water droplets out of his hair. “Alright. Let's do this.”

Joly nods at him, and strums out the opening chord. Grantaire matches the soft, lilting rhythm on the bongos, takes a deep breath – and sings.

This is the song that wrote itself. Grantaire wrote more, afterwards, but this was the one that needed to be sung by Grantaire, not by anyone else. He usually closes his eyes when he sings this, because then it's just him and the music, but it's not really, is it? It's Grantaire and the music and Joly and eighteen thousand people. He looks out into the crowd, watches them watch him.

Most of it is a sea of faces, occasionally one or two that stand out from interesting hair colours or facial features, but tonight, in the middle, right in front of the stage is Enjolras. Grantaire blinks. His brain does that fairly often – it sees someone similar to someone he knows, and assumes it's them in the audience. But this time, it really _is_ Enjolras.

Grantaire falters in the song; his voice breaks. The crowd cheers, bolstering him back up and Grantaire swallows. Smiles at them, and sings his line again. He looks again, but it's still Enjolras and Grantaire would know. He's too far away for Grantaire to tell whether he's smiling or frowning, but Grantaire would know him by the smell of his shampoo, by the uneven bounce of his hair even after it's cut, by fuzzy paparazzi photos in newspaper articles Grantaire's not supposed to be following. He just knows.

“I still love you, my darling,” sings Grantaire. “But now I love me too.”

 

_Dammnit, forgot to count. However many days clean._

––– 

**AUGUST**

“Hey,” said the voicemail. “It's me, Enjolras. I, uh. I heard your song, I mean I heard it about a week ago. When you sang it, ha. Sorry, that wasn't funny. And I guess you knew that. Anyway. That song... is about us, isn't it? I always thought that you didn't – I mean, I still lo – Well. This isn't really a conversation for voicemail. Call me back? If you want.”

Grantaire is a coward. They've been texting back and forth – not like they used to, but occasionally. It feels good to know Enjolras doesn't hate him. It feels terrifying to know that Enjolras still loves him.

He listens to the voicemail about twelve times; it's the first time he's heard Enjolras's voice in six months, and least the Enjolras he knows, when he's not at work, and it brings back (fond) memories how much he used to trip over his own words when they first started dating.

Grantaire deletes the voicemail, and then regrets it instantly; panic rises in his stomach even though he _knows_ it's irrational, he knows nothing bad is going to happen because he deleted one little voicemail. Grantaire's still holding the phone, shaking, when Joly gets there.

“Oh,” says Joly, like he knows exactly what's happened. Grantaire looks at him blankly, but Joly's pulling out his own phone and dialling out.

“Hello?” says a voice on the other end. Enjolras's voice. “Joly? Hello?”

Joly holds it out wordlessly to Grantaire, and Grantaire just stares at him. He could refuse it, and Joly would just pass it off as an accident. Or, he could –

“Hey,” says Grantaire, and he's aware his voice sounds shredded, as if he just swallowed a mouthful of glass shards. “It's me. Grantaire.”

He hears Enjolras inhale sharply on the other end, and excuse himself from whoever he's talking to. “Grantaire. Are you still there?”

“I'm still here,” says Grantaire.

“You – how're you doing?” asks Enjolras awkwardly, and it makes Grantaire laugh, because it always amused him how bad Enjolras was at small talk for a politician.

“I'm, I'm holding up. Say. Are you going to the VMAs this year?”

Enjolras pauses, thrown. “I – no. I'm a politician, I don't have anything to do with the music scene.” _Apart from you_ goes unsaid. Enjolras has been Grantaire's date to the VMAs for the last four years.

“Want to go with me?” Grantaire waves a hand quickly. “Just. Not _as_ anything. Just for old times' sake.” It's a pretty perfect idea. They'll spend the time together, but surrounded by people, utterly unable to talk about anything private.

Well. Grantaire is a coward.

_Still clean. Probably as clean as it's getting. Some stains just don't wash out._

 –––

**SEPTEMBER**

It was a crap idea.

The room is abandoned, party-goers long since moved onto the dancefloor. It's just the two of them and the muffled bass, thumping through the floor and into Grantaire's heart.

Enjolras looks almost comical, standing in the debris of a party. A balloon wafts along behind him, and Grantaire sits down with a clatter that echoes around the room. Enjolras swallows. " _You_ left _me_."

"I wanted to _marry_ you!" says Grantaire. He drags his hand across his face. "I wanted –" He swallows, and muffles his words into his hand. "I wanted to marry _you_ ," he says, willing Enjolras to understand him.

"I wanted to marry you too," says Enjolras, bristling. "Why do you think I proposed?"

Grantaire looks away, dried silly string sliding down one side of his head until he shakes it off. "You wanted to marry equal opportunities legislature," he says quietly. "Not me."

"What?"

Grantaire hunches in on himself, stares down at his still-full glass instead of up at Enjolras. "Do you remember what you said after I said yes?" He carries on. Grantaire's voice shakes, but he ignores it. "You said, 'This is going to be a great example for other queer people in this state.' Not 'I love you.' Not 'I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Grantaire.' 'This is going to be a great example for the other queer people in this state.'"

Enjolras splutters, Grantaire can hear him doing it, but there's nothing he can say because Grantaire's not lying. He couldn't if he wanted to; those words echo around his brain whenever he's particularly morose, the worst tune ever to get stuck in his head. He remembers everything, from Enjolras's delighted face to the way his stomach had filled with lead and dropped out the bottom of his torso, the way Enjolras had hired an official photographer without telling him so they could get professional photos of the proposal.

He had been so ecstatic that Enjolras had planned everything and organised everyone to be there so that it would be the perfect proposal, just for _him_ , but it hadn't been for Grantaire at all, and he hadn't realised until too late, blinded by his own happiness.

–––

**OCTOBER**

They have one of their big get-togethers. They usually have one every month or so, but between the tour and the re-election campaigns, everyone's been busy. Everyone's had excuses not to get them all together in the same room for months, and Grantaire sort of knows they've avoided it for him and Enjolras. Their friends are still friends, and no one wants to suffer the tension that would be there if they were forced to be in the same room as Enjolras and Grantaire studiously avoiding each other.

But still. The tour's finished and it's Halloween and Courfeyrac always throws a great party, even if it's just heading round to his place to drunkenly play board games. Maybe everyone thinks enough time has passed. ("Maybe we don't want our lives to revolve around you," says Joly heartlessly, and that actually makes Grantaire feel better.)

Enjolras is there, but Grantaire knew he would be, so it's alright. It feels different, talking to him face to face again. A year has passed, and Grantaire knows it's him who's changed. He wonders if Enjolras likes the new him. He'd be disappointed if he didn't, because Grantaire does.

“Hey,” says Grantaire. “I don't know if it's even relevant after so long, but. I still have the ring.”

“I still have mine too,” admits Enjolras. “It feels wrong to get rid of it.”

Grantaire's wondering if he should offer to give it back, when Enjolras speaks again. “You hated it, didn't you?”

“What?”

“The ring. The public proposal. Everything.”

“A little bit,” admits Grantaire. “And you didn't like me very much, which balances it out.”

“I did–”

“Nah. You loved me. But you didn't _like_ me very much.”

Enjolras frowns. “How... is that possible?”

“Case in point: your mother?”

“Ah,” says Enjolras. “Erm. It's not past tense.”

It takes Grantaire a moment. “Loved?”

Enjolras nods. “I know we haven't – talked this year, but the others kept me updated. And I still follow you on... everything.”

Grantaire knows what he means. He'd meant to delete Enjolras off facebook and instagram and twitter, but he'd already cut alcohol out of his life, and there was only so much pain he could deal with in one go, and then, he just... hadn't. Seeing Enjolras's updates had been like pressing on an old bruise; he knew they'd hurt, but sometimes he had to do it, just to check.

_Maybe some stains do wash out._

 –––

**NOVEMBER**

“Hi,” says Grantaire. “I'm Grantaire.”

“I'm Enjolras,” says Enjolras. Grantaire can see him struggling not to say anything glib, like 'I know', but he's trying and that's all Grantaire wants this time around. An Enjolras who tries.

(Not that Enjolras didn't try last time. But Enjolras has to try less than other people because it comes to him more naturally. He finds it easy to love, to live, to labour, and Grantaire does not.)

_Not a brand new sort of clean, more like a worn-in, comfy sort of clean._

**DECEMBER**

EXERPT TRANSCRIPT from Radio Channel 106.7 Lite FM

Nina Del Rio: So, I'm going to get the embarrassing personal questions out of the way first, do you mind?

Enjolras: (laughs) I'd prefer if you didn't ask them at all, of course, but no, by all means go ahead.

NDR: You and R, the drummer of The Alibi, were spotted canoodling at The Musain cafe a few days ago.

E: That's not a question, is it?

NDR: Inquiring minds want to know – are you back together now?

E: Of course they do. It's... Maybe? I'd like to hope so. It's a work in progress.

NDR: You're smiling.

E: It's progressing pretty well, that's really all I can say.

NDR: The same enquiring minds want to know if it's a publicity stunt – the timing seems to coincide with your upcoming re-election pretty well.

E: It's nothing to do with my work at all. If I get re-elected, I'll be happy. If I don't, I'll be disappointed, but I assure you. I'll still also be happy.

NDR: I think that's the most personal information anyone has managed to pry out of you in the last year.

E: (laughs) Yeah, I really don't like to talk about my personal life as a general rule. But, yes. I'm happy. And this time, I'm trying to make him happy too.


End file.
